Journalist of the month!

Our first journalist of the month for 2019 is Sally Beck! Sally writes health and real-life features for all the big hitters including the Daily Mail, The Mirror, The Sun, Woman, Woman’s Own, Glamour, Bella and Best plus many more. Sally has kindly taken time out of her busy week to answer the notorious Sunny Bird PR questions below…

1.  What are the 5 words that best describe you?

Tenacious definitely, funny, generous, kind and absent-minded.  

2.  What magazine do you love reading and why?

There are so many! It has to be Vanity Fair. Although I love the women’s weeklies like Grazia and Woman’s Own, Vanity Fair has it all, celebrity, fashion, in-depth political features… what’s not to love?

3. What is your favourite book?

I recently read Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. It was flagged up by Zadie Smith as one of the greatest American novels of the twentieth century, and it is. Written in 1937, it’s about a voiceless teenage girl’s journey into womanhood. It’s honest, compelling, and frankly, just a great story. 

4.  Which song makes you dance?

So many but the first that pops into my head is old skool - One Nation Under a Groove by Parliament Funkadelic.

5. What has been your best career moment?

Lordy, I’ve been blessed with a few but the first time I wrote a feature that made a difference was in the 1990s. I was working for a features agency who told me not to report on a young pressure group called Surfers Against Sewage (not a very romantic sounding name), but I did in my own time. SAS were campaigning for clean beaches at a time when Britain’s coastline with awash with waste. My feature made a spread in the Daily Mirror and it launched their campaign. It was picked up by every newspaper, including the broadsheets, and TV news channel and Channel 4 made a documentary about them. I learned to listen and trust my gut instinct.

6. What advice would you give your 20-year-old self?

Your twenties are for learning about yourself and your capabilities, be kind to yourself along the way. By the time you reach 30, you’ll have it sussed.

7.  Where are you happiest?

On my way to the airport. I love an adventure and I love reporting foreign stories. If it’s a travel story, even better.

8. Who would be your number one dinner guest and why?

Mick Jagger. So many questions I’d like to ask him, starting with ‘how the Stones have managed to stay together for so long?’ It isn't just the money. I’d also love to know what it is about him that beautiful women of all ages find attractive. And it isn’t just his considerable fortune either.

9. If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

To eat what I liked and never put on weight. I’m a real gourmet and there’s so much good food and so little time.

10.  If you had to ask us one question what would it be?

What do you love about journalists?

 Our answers…

Jess: Their creativity and passion to write about a wide range of topics.

Georgie: I love journalists that use their position to campaign for things they believe in.

Lizzie: I love reading articles and features by journalists that really enjoy writing; I love seeing their own use of language, style and sentence structure.

Laura: Their power to write articles that millions of people will read and be influenced by.

Alex: That they always have their finger on the pulse and are always one step ahead with the latest news, trends and stories.

Rachael: Their ability to find the best news angle and make an interesting read for different audiences.

PR Campaigns - The Good, The Bad & The Viral - Christmas Special

As 2018 draws to a close and we head into the holiday season we’ve been taking a look at some of our favourite Christmas campaigns from 2018. From scripts painted on train platforms, to stepping into Christmas with Elton John and slightly-more-exciting-than-usual socks we’ve narrowed down a plethora of Christmas PR campaigns to our favourite four… 

It’s A Wonderful Line

Recently, the issue of mental health at Christmas has come to the forefront of the media, with many charities raising awareness that for some, it is not ‘the most wonderful time of the year’. In order to raise awareness of the issue and help people struggling over the holiday period, Virgin Trains has teamed up with their long-term charity partner Rethink Mental Illness for an uplifting festive campaign.

The script of the classic Christmas film, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is appearing on train platforms over advent to show how powerful simple acts of kindness can be. The 1946 film is famed for being an uplifting Christmas staple, but it also deals with the difficult story of one man’s struggle with a life that hasn’t gone to plan.

The bright yellow text covers 7.5km of platforms on the Virgin Trains route from London to Glasgow at stations including London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, Carlisle and Glasgow. The platform text also includes online links offering simple ways to intervene when someone is struggling with mental health.

Throughout December, travellers will also be able to watch It’s A Wonderful Life on-board Virgin Trains while volunteers from Rethink Mental Illness will be fundraising at stations throughout the campaign period.

This thoughtful Christmas PR campaign has received widespread coverage in the likes of the Daily Mail, Stylist, Huff Post, The I, Lonely Planet and Heart FM.

Follow the journey on social media with #itsawonderfulline.

Merry Greggs-Mas!

We’ve all fallen victim to the Christmas shopping mania - rushing into town to pick-up last-minute gifts only to be met with crowds of people and a rather miserable drizzle that seems perfectly designed to make your hair frizzy. Luckily, Greggs are on hand to help this year with its free gift-wrapping service.

To help alleviate some of the stress that the build up to Christmas brings, Greggs hired their own Christmas elves to treat customers to free gift wrapping whilst they enjoy a complimentary glass of mulled wine. The campaign was inspired by a survey of over 2,000 people that revealed 69% of the nation find Christmas stressful.

The stores also brought out their own range of Christmas stocking fillers such as branded Christmas jumpers and a sausage roll phone case (we’re adding that straight to our Christmas list)!

The campaign achieved coverage in regional papers such as Birmingham Mail and Time Out magazine. We think it was a great way to attract new customers and get the loyal ones in the Christmas spirit!

The Nation’s Least Favourite Christmas Present…

We’ve all been there… attempting to buy Christmas gifts, only to resort to Marks & Sparks socks again. But, this year, Gigs in Scotland have cleverly taken on the nation’s favourite plan B Christmas gift with a twist…

Gigs in Scotland have turned the gift into a must-have for every music fan with their range of ‘Sock n Roll’ socks, which are actually a ticket into some of the country’s best music events for 2019!

Each pair of socks comes loaded with a unique gift card code, redeemable online at Ticketmaster and include tickets for TRANSMT festival and Summer Sessions. They’re the perfect gift for music-lovers!

We love the way this campaign combines the classic (and often deemed ‘boring’) gift of socks and gift cards to create a funny, relatable and most importantly, desirable gift that solves the woes of many Christmas shoppers. And with coverage on the Scottish Sun, Glasgow Live and Edinburgh Live it can definitely be considered a PR success too.

Step into Christmas with Elton

Every year we eagerly wait to see what heart-warming, tear-jerking advert John Lewis has created, but this year it’s caused mixed reviews. The short films featured in the run up to Christmas have previously featured Monty the penguin, trampolining dogs, monsters under the bed and the man on the moon, but for 2018 the brand has resorted to old-fashioned star power to sell Christmas with Sir Elton John singing his Your Song anthem.

The advert highlights the importance of gift-giving and how Elton’s gift of a piano from his grandmother helped make him the global icon he is today.

For the first time, John Lewis introduced an experiential element to its Christmas campaign this year using 83,000 stores to screen the film at 6am before it was officially shared on social media at 8am (also a breakaway from tradition as customers usually wait for it to appear on their TVs first).

Customers also had the chance to step in to the set of the advert and interact with props in 2,000 sq. ft experiential space. John Lewis even hosted a musical light show featuring Elton’s ‘Step into Christmas’ from the shop window every 30 minutes on the day it launched.

As much as we all love Elton, this campaign received mixed reviews with some viewers slamming it as an ‘awful’ advert for not being about Christmas. Some have also complained that the advert is a plug for Elton’s biopic ‘Rocketman’ set to launch next year and his last world tour. Another issue raised is that John Lewis don’t actually sell pianos, but since the complaints started rolling in, they have started selling them - the first time in decades.

Whilst this campaign received mixed reviews, we liked it for it’s truly integrated nature. No longer relying on just an advert to get Christmas sales up, John Lewis and Partners utilised creative, experiential PR stunts and social media to boost their presence.

As usual for any John Lewis Christmas advert, it has been shared endlessly with articles on Vogue, Independent, Guardian, Evening Standard, Daily Mail, The Sun, I News and Sky and many more.

Best Bits of 2018!

As we move rapidly through the festive season and ever closer to the new year, the team have been busy reflecting on one hell of a year! As this year draws to a close we thought we'd share with you our best bits from 2018!

The Team

The team celebrated a host of promotions and new starters this year including Lizzie who was promoted to PR Account Director and Alex who was promoted to Junior Account Manager. Lu, Georgie, Laura, Jess, and Kelly all joined the team in 2018 on a permanent basis and we also welcomed Raluca and Rachael as interns. A busy year indeed! #dreamteam 

The Clients

Our growing team in 2018 was thanks to our growing client base this year with an amazing 20 new clients joining us! 

The Courses

2018 was the year that also saw the SBPR team deliver our 'Reaching Millions' PR & Publicity Courses which were so well received that they've turned from a one-time event to a regular occurrence. Held in London and at our offices in Bournemouth, we've now had over 100 attendees not including our social media courses, strategy workshops or press release workshops! 

The Work

In between courses, workshops and strategy clinics we achieved some amazing results for our clients this year. Highlights include 60 features for new client Jimmy's Iced Coffee as well getting Jim's face on the front of The Grocer, Dr William Bird from Intelligent Health being featured on BBC's Spotlight, securing 90 VIP guests at the launch of luxury Chinese restaurant 1805 in just five days, getting 4 million listeners for Ramsay Health Care UK in just one day of radio interviews, securing 200 VIP guests at the Bluewater Spa Launch in the Connaught Hotel, securing brand-new client Carbon Retreat a feature in the Daily Mail just days after signing with SBPR, increasing the reach of Miss Dorset 2018 by 11 million people, securing over 120 features for The Green House Hotel including the Carbon Cost of Weddings and the UK's first Vegan Wedding Package, securing 170 VIP guests as well as BBC coverage for the opening of Revolución de Cuba bar in Southampton, and getting our client Tara Howard from the Venus Awards on ITV's This Morning!

The Social

This year the SBPR team have achieved some incredible results on the SBPR social media channels with our Facebook reach increasing 533% from 3,000 to over 20,000 this year, a 140% increase in followers on Instagram, our Linked In followers increasing by 87% to over 4,000, and our engagement on Twitter increasing 67% from 0.9% to 1.5%!

The Awards

This year, Sunny Bird PR proudly sponsored the PR Excellence Award at both the Dorset and London Venus Awards. The whole journey was fun, inspirational and rewarding, we met so many incredible women who were all achieving so much in their fields, it was truly very difficult to choose only one winner for each area! We were also fortunate enough to celebrate three of our own clients being finalists in the Dorset Venus Awards (in different categories!) and got to celebrate with the lovely Kelly as she won the Sustainability Award! And at the London Venus Awards we had two of our clients in the finals, Marisa Peer and Alice Morrison, and we also had our resident journalist, Steph Clarkson in the finals for Journalist of the Year!

We would also like to thank Tara and the Venus team for choosing me for the front cover of their programme, it was such an honour to be chosen and so much fun doing the photo shoot - thanks as well to Tailor Made Estate Agents for letting us use their fabulous properties in Sandbanks for the location of the shoot.

As well as sponsoring an award we were also shortlisted for an award by Team Jobs at the Dorset Business Awards. SBPR were up for Team of the Year award and we were all super excited at even being nominated. We were up against some stiff competition and didn't win this year...but watch out 2019...we're coming to get you!

2018 was the year of the awards as we attended the OK! Beauty Awards with our longest-standing client, Good Night. The SBPR had curated a social media campaign for Good Night's latest product, Sleeping Beauty, thanks to a great product and our hard work....we won (and we got to meet lovely Peter Andre which was easily the highlight of the year for some of us!)!

Needless to say we’ve all had a truly fabulous year both as a business and as a team. A massive thank you to all our clients as we wouldn’t be here without you! And we massively look forward to enjoying next year with you all too.

Journalist of the Month!

Laura Hampson with her Journalist of the Year prize at the London Venus Awards

Laura Hampson is a Digital Lifestyle Writer at the London Evening Standard and covers travel, health and fitness, food, drink and design. She was also the 2018 winner of the London Venus Award for Journalist of the Year!  Laura took some time out of her award-winning career to answer the notorious Sunny Bird PR questions… 

What are the 5 words that best describe you?

I asked my best friend and she said: “Curious, enthusiastic, kind, loyal and brave.”

What magazine do you love reading and why?

Evening Standard magazine, of course. As they always have interesting features and profiles. Other than that, I love Stylist as they always hit the mark.

What is your favourite book?

The two books I always go back to are Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and Where Rainbows End by Cecelia Ahern, two books I read when I was a teenager that have stuck with me and that I could read over and over. I am currently reading Michelle Obama’s memoir ‘Becoming’ which is also an excellent read.

Which song makes you dance?

Sorry by Justin Bieber. I attempted to learn the dance from the music video a few years back so now crack out a terrible version of it whenever it comes on.

What has been your best career moment?

Winning Journalist of the Year at the Venus Awards, I definitely didn’t expect it, but it was such a thrill to hear my name called.

What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?

Don’t be afraid to speak up more, your opinion matters.

Where are you happiest?

At home, cooking dinner with my boyfriend or whenever I get a chance to go back to New Zealand to visit my family.

Who would be your number one dinner guest and why?

Kate Sheppard, basically New Zealand’s answer to Emmeline Pankhurst. She pioneered the women’s suffrage movement in New Zealand and helped NZ become the first self-governing country in the world to give women the vote in parliamentary elections in 1893. I would like to say ‘thank you’.  If it has to be a living guest, then Jacinda Ardern, NZ’s current Prime Minister. She just seems cool.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

Teleportation. 100%. Then I could go see my family after work every night instead of having to fly 24+ hours and halfway across the world just to say hello in person. Oh, and it would make commuting a breeze.

If you had to ask us one question what would it be?

What country is at the top of your bucket list to visit and why?

Last month we answered where’s next on our travel bucket list, so this month we’ll tell you all about our number one dream destination to visit…

Georgie: “Mine would definitely be a tour to see wild mountain gorillas. I saw wild Bornean Orangutans in 2016 and it was an incredible experience, so gorillas are next!”

Alex: “I would want to travel around South America, I really want to see the Chilean marble caves and Bolivian salt flats.”

Jess: “I would go to the floating pizza and champagne bar in the middle of the ocean in Fiji – all my favourite things!”

Lu: “I would travel around Australia, New Zealand and Bali because I love the heat and I want to see beautiful sights. I would definitely do a sky dive too!”

Laura: “I would go to Mexico so I can eat nachos all day long…”

Rachael: “My number one would be Bali, mainly because of the weather and the beautiful scenery. Plus, you can indulge yourself in ultimate luxury on a budget and the food is colourful and healthy.”

Lizzie: “I’ve heard there’s a cat island in Japan…”

PR Campaigns – The Good, The Bad and The Viral!

Now winter has arrived, we are taking a look at the PR campaigns that have left us with a warm, fuzzy feeling. So, make a hot chocolate, put your feet up and enjoy perusing the good, bad and viral campaigns we’ve discovered this month…

John Lewis, the first.

Every year, the inevitable John Lewis advert is released and with that comes an influx of social media comments and shares. One man who can really relate to this is Virginia’s John Lewis, someone who receives thousands of tweets leading up to the release of the John Lewis advert and throughout the duration of its broadcast.

Boasting the handle @johnlewis as opposed to @jlandpartners (arguably harder to search for), the Virginia resident responds to tweets year after year directing consumers to the correct twitter profile, and he even shares his views on the latest advert!

This year, John Lewis (the company that is!) decided to pay ode to the gentleman by creating his very own advert which showcases the witty responses to people’s twitter questions and how he goes about translating our English sayings.

You can view the full advert by following this link. We think it’s better than Elton John’s….

The ‘advert’ achieved over 20,000 retweets and John Lewis even tweeted John with the kind words: “In return for your years of service to us, we’ll be sending any wayward Tweets from your fans straight back to you!”

All that’s left to say really is… would the real John Lewis please stand up?

#NotARetailStore

Deliveroo’s ‘Ride to Find’

The festive season can often be the hardest time for families and friends who are missing a loved one, which is why 500 Deliveroo riders have been wearing mobile billboards across London, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol as part of a campaign with the charity Missing People. The delivery bags featured images of missing people in the area to help raise awareness of individuals who are missing across the UK.

According to the Missing People organisation, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds in the UK, with 80% being found within 24 hours. However, one in five cases take longer or remain unsolved.

With Deliveroo riders being a consistent presence on our streets, this campaign is cleverly using its riders to make a real difference to the communities in which they live and work.

Each of the firm’s 15,000 riders have been encouraged to sign up to receive child rescue alerts, which notifies subscribers whenever a missing child in their area is considered to be at a very high risk of harm. The Deliveroo app is also introducing a fundraising feature, giving customers the opportunity to donate to the charity.

Not only has the brand’s campaign gained coverage in The Metro, Sky News, ITV news, but three out of four missing people have already been reunited with their families in time for Christmas, after their faces were displayed on posters on the backpacks of Deliveroo riders. Amazing news!

Taco Bell Makes Big Ben Chime Once More

In anticipation of Taco Bell’s first London restaurant opening, the American fast food giant wanted to make a noise in the city.

To announce its arrival, Taco Bell chimed in with a sound London has been missing for over a year: Big Ben’s bells. The clock tower synonymous with the capital has been quiet since major construction work began back in August 2017 and is not expected to be heard again until 2021.

The Mexican restaurant chain worked with an audio engineer to recreate the Westminster chimes by digitising the brand’s own iconic 80’s chime. The sound was then played from speakers attached to rickshaws moving through the surrounding areas leaving unsuspecting commuters wondering if Big Ben had been resurrected.

"Restoring Big Ben's bell with our bell was the perfect way to introduce ourselves to London in a way only Taco Bell can," said Marisa Thalberg, Taco Bell Global Chief Brand Officer.

"We don't take ourselves too seriously and have been known to play a prank or two. We hope our unique twist on Big Ben's chimes brought surprise and humour to Londoners; this was our little arrival gift as we gratefully show up on London's doorstep."

The clever PR stunt, taking place just days before the London store opening, certainly caught peoples’ attention with the news quick to find its way on to social media. The stunt also achieved coverage in the likes of Forbes, The Drum, and Marketing Dive while making major news headlines across the pond in the likes of Fox News and US Weekly. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=69&v=jSahXJVqXdA

The Purple Revolution

We love this colourful PR campaign from the purple light up movement. Tuesday 3rd December marked International Day of Persons with Disabilities and to highlight and celebrate disabled people in the workplace, Purple Space encouraged businesses to use purple on logos and for communities to wear purple. The idea was to raise awareness and to help others recognise disabilities.

In the UK, seven million people have health conditions or disabilities and 50% of these people are unemployed. We love that large corporations such as Channel 4, Lloyds Bank, Virgin and HSBC were involved in this campaign as it really boosts awareness. Social media users were encouraged to use #purplelightup on their posts which created even more of a buzz. Channel 4 even aired a two-minute clip which encouraged businesses to help talented disabled people find careers where they can succeed.

This campaign featured in Campaign Live and Financial Times to name a few, spreading a great message this International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Choose Love Pops Up to Help Refugees

Working in PR we often see ‘pop-up’ shops opening as part of a larger PR campaign and often to great success with plenty of national news coverage. However, when you’ve seen so many the idea can become jaded which is why we love this PR campaign from Help Refugees – a pop-up shop with a difference.

Opening on Carnaby Street on Black Friday, Choose Love gave shoppers the option to spend plenty of money but walk away without any laden shopping bags. Inside the shop a plethora of items designed to help refugees were available to purchase, including warm clothing, tents, sleeping bags and hot food. Once the items are purchased by a customer, the shop will deliver it to help refugees this Christmas.

We were pleased to see that the shop also helped to raise awareness of their cause with tons of national features including in The Guardian, Time Out and The Drum, along with plenty of celebrity visits ranging from Jeremy Corbyn to Camilla and Jamie from Love Island!

The store is open until Christmas and shoppers in London can head down to 30 – 32 Foubert’s Place to help, or can visit their online shop here to support the cause.

Eat-y No Phone

When it comes to PR campaigns, we love to see brands taking a stand and trying to change something not only within their industry, but also within society. Hard-hitting, non-sitting-on-the-fence behaviour is often encouraged by us PRs as it’s a sure-fire way to get your brand’s voice heard (done in the right way of course!).

Frankie and Benny's has very bravely taken on the issue of mobile phones at the dinner table, brave as it involves potentially criticising parenting skills, which no matter how good the intentions are will always produce some kind of defensive backlash. Headlines from the national papers included ‘Frankie and Benny’s BANS mobile phones in drastic bid to get diners talking’ and ‘Frankie and Benny’s BAN mobile phones at ALL its restaurants in UK first’.

As well as potentially being controversial, the popular American-Italian restaurant chain has based its actions on a shocking nationwide study that found as many as 72% of kids wished their parents would spend less time on their phones and more time talking to them. A survey is a great asset for PR campaigns if you get strong stats, and you’ll often see a SBPR campaign backed up with a client’s survey results.

Another golden asset was the much sought-after ‘UK first’ which delivered the national headlines for the brand. The popular diner believes it is the first large company in the UK to impose the scheme and is offering a 'kids eat free' bonus to anyone who agrees to hand over their mobiles at any of its 250 restaurants which delivers a lovely feel-good freebie rewarding element to the campaign.

A spokesperson for Frankie and Benny’s said: "We looked at various ways we could encourage people to engage more at the dinner table, and we've found giving families the chance to part with their devices for a mere couple of hours is a great way to bring them closer and embrace family time."

A very well executed PR campaign in terms of assets, focus and messaging, and it delivered results with features appearing in a plethora of national titles including The Mirror, The Independent, The Daily Star, The Telegraph, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Times and the BBC.

Journalist of the month!

Georgia-May Collings is a journalist at Health & Wellbeing where she covers fitness and wellness including health stories from celebrities such as Charlotte Hawkins and Erin Mcnaught. This month Georgia-May took time out from her busy schedule to answer the notorious Sunny Bird PR questions. Take it away Georgia-May!

1.  What are the 5 words that best describe you?

I have sat and thought about this question for a solid hour and am still yet to come up with an answer, so make of that what you will. 

2.  What magazine do you love reading and why?

I subscribe to Women's Health and read Cosmopolitan regularly. A special shout-out has to go to Take A Break who recently did a crime special and I read the entire magazine in one sitting. I am fascinated by unsolved mysteries, crime and serial killers (without sounding weird) so that was right up my street. 

3. What is your favourite book?

I’m obsessed with The Secret by Rhonda Byrne- I always re-read and go back to this whenever I'm having a meltdown about life (so regularly....). I also love Bryony Gordan's The Wrong Knickers.  

4.  Which song makes you dance?

Any One Direction song. 

5. What has been your best career moment?

Nothing to do with journalism or magazines funnily enough, but after I finished university, I taught English in China for six months which was easily one of the hardest things I have ever done due to the culture shock, but it was super rewarding. 

6. What advice would you give your 20-year-old self?

Get off ASOS and start saving some money!

7.  Where are you happiest?

When going on holiday - I know it is probably super cliché, but life is pretty great when you're by the beach with no cares in the world apart from deciding whether to get in the pool or get a cocktail. 

8. Who would be your number one dinner guest and why?

Usain Bolt - not only is he is the fastest man in the world, but he ate nothing but McDonald's chicken nuggets exclusively during the Beijing 2008 Olympics and still managed to win three gold medals which speaks to me on many levels.

9. If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

Definitely to teleport ... I'm always in a rush so getting to places by clicking my fingers would be ideal. 

10.  If you had to ask us one question what would it be?

Where is next on your travel bucket list? I'm always open to hearing about new places to visit! 

Alex: “Mine has to be Chile.”

Sunny: “The Maldives – I’ve wanted to go there for years.”

Jess: “I love cruising, so a Caribbean cruise would be ideal right now. And yes, I’m in my twenties.”

Laura: “I’ve always wanted to ski in Canada so that’s got to be next.”

Elizabeth: “I’m off to Costa Rica for Christmas!”

Georgie: “Anywhere!”

Happy Clientversary Mr Lee's!

This month the Sunny Bird PR team is celebrating our one-year clientversary with the no nasties, Dorset-based noodle brand, Mr Lee’s Noodles.

We first began working with Mr Lee’s Noodles back in 2017, a year after they begun trading, with the objective of raising the profile of their gluten-free noodles across the UK.

Over the past year, the Sunny Bird PR team have worked alongside Mr Lee’s on a predominantly media relations campaign, reaching out to the press to gain coverage in food slots, news stories and round-ups.

Throughout the course of the year we’ve smashed our targets, achieving 28 pieces of coverage since January, that’s an average of two features a month! Thanks to our campaign, Mr Lee’s Noodles has featured in prestigious titles such as The Grocer, Vegan Living, Veggie, Woman magazine and The Metro, with pots of their tasty noodles landing on the hands and desks of some of the most well-respected journalists in the country.

To secure these opportunities we’ve taken a number of different approaches to cut through the noise and get make journalists aware of the brand.

One key element of this has been making sure that journalists are aware of the noodles for key calendar hooks such as Veganuary, World Vegan Month and Coeliac Awareness Day.  

We’ve been busy showing off the nutritional value of Mr Lee’s in comparison to other well-known noodle brands (we won’t name names!), offering Mr Lee’s as an alternative option for an ‘al-desko’ lunch and highlighting Mr Lee’s as a leader in the Free-From Foods market. All to great success!

But Mr Lee’s isn’t just about the fantastic noodles. We recognised that Damien Lee, founder and creator of the brand has an extremely compelling story himself; he created the recipes following being diagnosed with cancer and self-prescribing himself a no nasties, raw diet. With a story like this, we knew that there would be an appetite in the press for Damien himself. We created an engaging profile and pitched it to press, resulting in coverage in respected trade and business publications such as Management Today, Entrepreneur and Investor and Start Ups.

Thanks to a 12-month PR strategy, drip feeding Mr Lee’s to journalists throughout the year, a touch of creativity and, of course, a fantastic product, we’ve achieved consistently brilliant results and fantastic coverage for our favourite noodle brand every month. This year, our PR campaign has reached over two million people and achieved a total of 28 pieces of coverage and thanks to our campaign, Mr Lee’s Noodles has featured in prestigious titles such as The Grocer, Vegan Living, Veggie, Woman magazine and The Metro, with pots of their tasty noodles landing on the hands and desks of some of the most well-respected journalists in the country. We cannot wait to continue this brilliant partnership into 2019 and beyond!

Reaching Millions!

If you’ve been following us on social media over the last few months you’ll have seen that we’ve been running our ‘Reaching Millions’ PR and Publicity courses here at SBPR HQ, teaching local businesses how to do their own PR.

The idea came about after conversations with start-ups and small businesses that knew the importance of PR, but simply didn’t have the budget for a PR agency. Founder of Sunny Bird PR and creator of the courses, Sunny, understands first-hand the struggles of being a start-up with budget constraints from her experience launching her own fitness retreat brand.

“When I started New You Boot Camp, I had just £3,000 to spend on a website and equipment. I had no money for anything else; no advertising, no SEO, no PPC, no social media, nothing. The only thing I had was a knowledge of PR which I used to invite journalists and celebrities to come to the boot camp and publish their experiences. Through PR alone, my business became an overnight success and was recognised worldwide by clients, celebrities and the media.”

Sunny then went on to launch retreats across the UK and Europe turning over just under £1 million in the first year. The media attention she received was a crucial factor in the growth of the business.

The power of PR led Sunny to secure a book deal with renowned publisher, Collins & Brown and to launch retreats across the UK as well as in Spain, Portugal and Austria.

Knowing how PR can drive a new business forward, Sunny was keen to help other brands find their voice and share her knowledge with other starts ups and new businesses. She created the ‘Reaching Millions’ PR & Publicity course to help them harness the power of PR for themselves.

When carried out effectively PR can skyrocket small businesses to scale ups, helping to raise the profile of the brand, build credibility, drive sales and secure new customers. Media attention is an invaluable asset – especially if you want to scale, speak on stage, land book deals and be seen by millions.

The one-day workshop is designed to teach small businesses everything they need to do their own PR. Recognising the need for useful take-home tools, Sunny also gives everyone that comes on the course examples of real-life pitches, a press release template and their own top ten media contacts.

Here’s what some of the attendees of our last course had to say about their experience:

Our next course dates are as follows:

Bournemouth – Thursday 22nd November 2018, 1pm – 5pm

Bournemouth – Friday 25th January 2018, 1pm – 5pm

London – Thursday 29th November 2018, 1pm – 5pm